Change to 100 top prospects=bad

[Skipaway]

Originally posted by Aadik
Hardly. Rather, the statistics should be a derivative of the ratings- if they are contrived differently, there is a huge problem.

So how should the derivative be represented? Especially for cases like Brady Anderson 1996?

[Henry]

Let's cover some basics again, to be sure we're not assuming anything. I'm listing here what I thing happens in the background based on discussions over the years. I'll point Steve and Markus to this post - so if they wish, they can correct me...

* Talent and ratings play the same role in the minor as they do in the majors, and the minor league statistics are derived using the same game engine as the majors. Those two things are the same.

* Both major and minor league players have a hidden factor that defines a player with more granularity than what we see - thus results will sometimes be different than expected.

* The major difference between majors and minors are (1) that the minor league rosters are not complete, being filled with "scrubs??" which might be skewing their statistics, and (2) I believe that Markus has some kind of minor league level "adjuster" which creates more variance in the lower minors.

If all the above is true, then minor league statistics are simply more variable, when compard to ratings, than major league stats. That is, in fact, the "fog of war" that makes rating prospects difficult.

If the above is true, and statistics are made more accurate, we are, by definition, removing the "fog of war" and variability.

If we do this, then the "fog of war" has to be replaced by making the hidden factor more variable - which would result in more players being above or below what we expect.

If yu've followed what I've explained - and if I'm correct, you can see how the current system works, why, and how increasing the accuracy of minor league statistics could cause other problems (unless, of course, you want to get rid if "fog of war" which I believe we don't....

[sixto]

Originally posted by Skipaway
So how should the derivative be represented? Especially for cases like Brady Anderson 1996?

Well, let's look at Brady Anderson. Let's pretend he has a Strat/APBA card (because that's easier for me to visualize than OOTP ratings) and he has a 1/18 chance of hitting a HR according to the card. Someone with math skillz could plot for us his 90th percentile HR total projection based on a full season. Now, let's compare that number to the 50 HR he hit. The difference between the expected max HR he could hit and the 50 HR he did hit is explainable only by some combination of luck and skill change. Of course the creatine and/or steroids didn't hurt.

I think that OOTP users, if forced to face it, would realize that they are of two minds when it comes to ratings/statistics in the game. Where a Brady Anderson or a Willie Blair or Bob Welch crazy season are perfectly acceptable in real life, they do not fit into a game well at all.

[D Love]

"Fog of war"? Henry, you had me until that line. This debate could have been carried out much more efficiently if everyone used standard terminology instead of these off-the-wall phrases.

Like wouldn't it have been easier to just discuss "Ratings", "Talent" and hidden "Potentials". Instead, I'm not sure whether someone discussing Talent means OOTP Talent or the player's hidden potential ratings or what.

Anyhow, I understand why minor league stats should be more variable in order to make scouting less straight-forward. BUT, I don't clearly see why stats should be used more heavily to rank the top 100. Unless you're saying that favoring stats more is better than simply looking at talent?

[Henry]

Originally posted by D Love
"Fog of war"? Henry, you had me until that line. This debate could have been carried out much more efficiently if everyone used standard terminology instead of these off-the-wall phrases.

Like wouldn't it have been easier to just discuss "Ratings", "Talent" and hidden "Potentials". Instead, I'm not sure whether someone discussing Talent means OOTP Talent or the player's hidden potential ratings or what.

Anyhow, I understand why minor league stats should be more variable in order to make scouting less straight-forward. BUT, I don't clearly see why stats should be used more heavily to rank the top 100. Unless you're saying that favoring stats more is better than simply looking at talent?

For us old-time game players, "fog of war" simply means you don't have access to every detail the program does - thus making things appear to happen with more variance.

Also, I'm not defending OR attacking the addition of stats to come up with this list. I'm simply saying that there is always more than one way to do something - especially is your talking about defining potential.

The issue remains - what do we want? Do we want accuracy (which reduces "fog of war" and gives you more of a game that tells you everything with maybe 90% accuracy) or do we want realism (which throws in enough variables to provide maybe 50% of what the program knows).

I'm simply contending that IRL 50-60% is all you really know from all sources... any prospect list published today is doing good if it hits over 50% of the time.

[Dazooz]

Originally posted by Henry
After reading this at least 50 times, I'm begining to think the problem is a basic one...

In real life, what do you have? ...statistics. It is ALL you have. You do not have talent ratings, current ratings, potential, or anything else. You ONLY have stats. Any perception of who or what a player is - is based on stats, or some narative from a scout, or otherwise, that says "this guy is good".

In OOTP, you have TONS more data. you have stats, which everyone is used to using as a way to determine value, you have ratings which create the stats, and you have talent, which puts limits around what the ratings can be. Too much information - and we can argue forever as to which one is best or worst in the evaluation of a player.

I think that's why, in most of my leagues, I have set them to talent only. This gives me two measurements (1) talent which is the media, scouts, and bar room chatter about a player, and stats, which are the real measurement.

If your a manager, you go on stats and a gut feel of "talent" and that's it.

I think too few of us turn the ratings off and work at the talent level only... it's really what real life is like. In that mode, it doesn't matter what's happening to the ratings because you can't see them anyway. If a guy goes into a slump, you have about as much an idea in real life why - and the same if he gets hot.

I agree here Henry. I switched to talent only and it has been one of the best moves I have made in my league.

On that note, I wish that the player deveopment report would not say "Rodney Scott has lost a step. His speed drops to B..." It would be much more fun if your coach just advised you. "Rodney Scott hasn't been running well lately. He may not be as quick as we thought." Or something like that!

[Henry]

Originally posted by Dazooz
I agree here Henry. I switched to talent only and it has been one of the best moves I have made in my league.

On that note, I wish that the player deveopment report would not say "Rodney Scott has lost a step. His speed drops to B..." It would be much more fun if your coach just advised you. "Rodney Scott hasn't been running well lately. He may not be as quick as we thought." Or something like that!

I like that idea

[Kemp]

I finally sat down and read through this entire post and I have to say that I agree with Henry. That is, I think the issue here is that we DO have access to the players ratings (or close to it with scouts) and therefore we KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. If a 20 year old with poor ratings hits .380, we KNOW it was a fluke and we won’t consider him a prospect.

But let’s look at this in real life. If a young player has “poor ratings” (the scouts don’t like him) and he hits .380 in AA, then we may take a second look. Maybe the scouts are wrong, maybe the season was a fluke. We don’t know.

Rocco Baldelli in 2002. He put up great stats (walks aside) but Baseball Prospectus just barely had him in their Top 20. There’s a guy with good stats who the “scouts” said had low potential. Which do you believe? In OOTP, if the bytes called “Rocco Baldelli” had a talent rating of “Fair” in Hitting for Average, we’d have a much better idea of “who to believe”.

I turned to Talent Only a while back and it was a good move, I think. It lowers what I KNOW TO BE TRUE and makes me look at the stats more carefully.

[Crapshoot]

Actually, the Scouts had said he was a potential all-star- he was Baseball America's Minor league player of the year. If anything, it proves the point we were trying to make.

[Kemp]

BA had him rated highly but BP did not. That's because BA looks less at the stats than BP and BP did not like the walk rate.

But the point is, NEITHER publication KNOWS the true ceiling of Rocco Baldelli. BP looked at his stats and said "his ceiling isn't very high" while BA looked at his skills and said "he's very talented". But no one knows FOR SURE.

In OOTP, you DO have a pretty good idea because you can look at his ratings and his talent potential. So in OOTP, even if Baldelli hit .330 in AA at a young age, you have a pretty good idea if he's truly a "prospect".

[draven085]

Originally posted by Kemp
BA had him rated highly but BP did not. That's because BA looks less at the stats than BP and BP did not like the walk rate.

But the point is, NEITHER publication KNOWS the true ceiling of Rocco Baldelli. BP looked at his stats and said "his ceiling isn't very high" while BA looked at his skills and said "he's very talented". But no one knows FOR SURE.

In OOTP, you DO have a pretty good idea because you can look at his ratings and his talent potential. So in OOTP, even if Baldelli hit .330 in AA at a young age, you have a pretty good idea if he's truly a "prospect".

Sort of. Don't forget the randomness of talent bumps and hits. Those can go a long way toward determining how good a player a prospect becomes. But that's probably a different discussion

[Kemp]

Yes, you're totally correct. The random talent changes ARE a problem. But you're also right in pointing out that it's a different discussion.....

Really what is being discussed here is - What makes a player a prospect in OOTP?

[alhill]

The root problem in OOTP is that if you try to correlate a player's success in the majors with his minor league talent ratings or his minor league stats, it's not even close which works better. Talent ratings far and away do a better job.

That's why I started this thread wondering why you would change a measure of a prospect's predicted major league success so that it would include a variable that is significantly worse than the variables already used.

You add minor league stats to the equation, and you make the Top 100 prospects list worse at doing what it is supposed to do. It's that simple, and it doesn't make sense to me. You essentially break something that was already fixed.

[gmo]

Originally posted by Dazooz
On that note, I wish that the player deveopment report would not say "Rodney Scott has lost a step. His speed drops to B..." It would be much more fun if your coach just advised you. "Rodney Scott hasn't been running well lately. He may not be as quick as we thought." Or something like that!

Yes, yes! But speed seems to be the one thing that you can measure most accurately, along with pitching velocity. But with most other skills, that is how I wish youngsters had their talent hits reported. When my 4-5 star prospect regresses to a 1 star, I try to tell myself it is just that the original scouting (wishful thinking?) is proving incorrect. The guy just can't perform as it was thought he might. "John Smith is not proving to be the power hitter we projected" or "John Smith is showing he has better gap power than we had thought" Something along those lines. Seems most young players don't become actually less talented, just less talented than was thought.

Maybe the scout correctly says those things though the minors stats don't show it. "He's not showing it yet, but he's going to be a better home run hitter" Maybe the scout says those things because his minors stats are good, but there really is no change in what he could do in the majors. "He's mowing down guys here in AA - I think he is better than I thought before" And so on...

On the other hand, vets' talent (or whatever it is called) changes should be described differently since their abilities should be better "known" with all their years and performances over the years by which to make such assessments.

[gopads02]

Originally posted by Henry
Ok... what am I missing here ?

Markus makes changes to the development curves to better reflect the fact that minor league statistics should play a bigger role in development.

Development is defined 1st as "talent ratings" (which will now react more favorably to statistical results) and then actual "ratings" which are driven by talent.

Are these changes to the development curves confirmed as true for this latest patch or is this your opinion Henry ? If this is true, I think this is an awesome improvement because the old system was frustrating and a bit unrealistic.

Old system: I thought Talent development has always been totally random (IE Talent Increases occur randomly- Player A w/ good stats has same chance of a Talent Increase as Player B who has horrendous stats).

Originally posted by Clarnazz

I just kinda felt like making the stats a part of the top 100 list was more of a "smoke and mirrors" type fix to create the perception that a player's minor league stats are an important part of the game.

This was my initial reaction too when I read the readme.txt for the new patch.

[gopads02]

Originally posted by clarnzz
Guess like anything it's all a matter of perspective. I would still prefer the prospects list to not have statistics be a factor just for the reason that without it I felt it was more accurate than with it. That said, your post was a good one and I can see what your saying.

OK I don't know about you other guys, but I've always been a subscriber to Baseball America and I really enjoy reading their top 100 prospect lists and their annual top 30 organizational prospects list. I like those lists because feel those lists identify true prospects, not just stat leaders (I can check stat leaders out just by running a AAA league leaders report). Those lists take into account the players age, current performance (stats), current skills & mechanics (ratings bars) and future potential (talent bars).

Originally posted by sixto
I agree with your first sentence 100%, and disagree with your second sentence 100%.

The Top 100 list is not important. It is a prestige thing and nothing else. "Hmm, who of my prospects can I feel proud about?" That's all the list does.

I beg to differ, I like to use the top 100 list as a starting off point when I'm trying to gain awareness for who the prospects are and which ones I should pursue. The other method of manually sifting through every minor league player on every team is too time consuming and tedious. I'd rather just have a good list of the top guys who are the only ones I'm truly interested in trading for in the first place.

Additionally I'd like to know where my prospect stands in comparison to all the other teams prospects overall, not just in a 1 vs. 1 head-up comparison between 2 prospects and to a certain extent the top 100 did that.

I guess the bottom line is if the changes to the top 100 list in the new patch were the result of new tweaks to the player development curves (as in having minor league stats have more of an influence in affecting talent development increases/decreases) I'd be more than welcoming to the changes.

But if the changes to the top 100 list is just a change in how the list is compiled- then I have to agree with clarnazz that it's just a "smoke and mirrors" job to make it seem as if Stats are more important now in ranking Prospects when in fact minorleague Stats still have nothing to do with the outcome of how your player's talent levels develops (I said Talent not Ratings levels, as ratings are a function of talent and talent is a function of randomness not stats.)

Originally posted by sixto
You might as well go by stats. I really don't see, given the fact that talent/bustability is random, how adding another possibly random factor in the mix is a problem. It's either random or not random, you can't be somewhat random.

Again I beg to differ, maybe this is semantics, but when we refer to the system being random it's a bit of a misnomer, what we really are referring to is probability.

The current system for whether Talent Levels increase or decrease as I see it is "random". And by "random" I mean all players having an equal probability of X% for a talent increase. That means there's an X% chance across the entire board for every player regardless of current talent levels, ratings or stats.

Say X is 5% probability right now for all players of having their talent levels increasing.

Since this is just a probability function, we indeed can "make it somewhat random." You can do this by saying since Player A has been overachieving in the minors (having stats that goes beyond their talent potential), lets have their probability for a talent increase be better than the other Players B-C-D, etc . Player A now has another +2% added to their 5% chance, making him have a 7% chance at a talent increase as compared to the 5% that all the other players have. The important point to note is that the system is still for the most part "random" since the percentages are still very low.

Of course, the biggest worry of having stats dictate to a degree whether Talent Potential increases is that you'll have a spiralling situation where players with good stats will get all the talent increases and those with bad stats will suffer a downward spiral of talent decreases. Again, this is not true, because there are at least 2 controls besides age. The first control is that again the percentages are still very low. The 2nd control is that players must Overachieve or Underachieve relative to their Talent Levels in order to have a higher probability of a talent increase/decrease, otherwise they're percent chance remains at 5%.

To illustrate what I mean, let's assume that there are two players, "Player A" and "Player B." Both players are exactly the same (same age, position) except that both their Talent and Ratings differ. So "Player A" who has a Homerun Talent of Fair and hits 15 HRs each year in AA and AAA will get that +2% added to his base 5% for a Talent Increase. "Player B," who has a Homerun Talent of Average, hits 15 HRs in AA and AAA, however he will get nothing or +0% added to his base 5% probability. Even though both players have performed exactly the same statistically, Player A has a higher probability of a talent increase than Player B (7% for A vs. 5% for B) because it is perceived that Player A is overachieving relative to his Talent Level of Poor while Player B is merely performing at a level that is expected of him.

This "performance vs. expectations" mechanism acts as a control because say now Player A does get lucky and indeed receives a Talent Increase. His Homerun Talent Level increases from Fair to Average. Now since his Talent Level is higher, his expectations are higher as well, which makes it more diffucult for him to "overachieve" again. Essentially this means his probability for another Talent increase is reset from 7% back to the normal base level of 5%. It will only go up to 7% if he overachieves again and hits like 30+ HRs in AAA which is considered "Overachieving" for a prospect who has a HR Talent of Average. The same concept is applied for underachievers and talent decreases.

I hope i'm making sense and I hope you see why I think it's not that difficult and more importantly, disruptive at all to make these small tweaks to the Player Development curves. NOTE TO HENRY And by tweaking the Player Development curves first, the top 100 list will automatically adjust (and in effect change) while keeping the criteria for choosing who's on the list the same as before- that is what I hope happenned in the last patch...only Marcus and maybe Henry knows for sure.

[gopads02]

Originally posted by spleen1015
Something that has always puzzled me is why people pay attention to the stats when deciding who should play. I say this because, as far as I know, the player ratings are what determine the outcome of each AB. The stats are just the results of those ABs. If the stats don't play a part in how the outcome is determined, why use them to decide who plays? I have always given the nod to the player with the better ratings.

When a guy is in a slump, the calulations just haven't been in his favor during that time. He still has the same chance of an outcome in his favor the next time. It doesn't matter if he's a .340 hitter who is in an 2-20 slump.

In my mind, the ratings are what you use for player evaluation. The stats are just the results of those ratings used in one big math problem.

Well to be blunt Spleen, you are stating the obvious. All of us who have played OOTP5 long enough are doing exactly that when deciding on which players to play.

Now just because all of us are doing exactly what you mention above, doesn't mean it's a right or realistic way of doing player evaluation. In real life, there are numerous examples of players who have statistics that are beyond their perceived ratings, examples in the past include Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, and currently Kevin Millar, Paul LoDuca, Jaime Moyer.

Now if these players consistently "overachieve" and perform beyond their ratings, do real life GMs and managers ignore these stats and start only players with higher ratings ? No, they don't. They factor in the players age, current performance (stats), current skills & mechanics (ratings bars) and future potential (talent bars) in their player evaluations.

Currently, in OOTP5 none of us do that not because we choose to, but because we have to since stats are ignored and is not a factor in player development (especially minor league stats). This is why I think this is something critical that needs to change and be improved upon in order to allow us virtual OOTP5 GMs & Managers to start evalutating players in the same manner as real life GMs & Managers do.

[gopads02]

Originally posted by Henry
Therein lies this argument I believe. There are those who feel that if a player is batting .350 even though his "stat" is a "5". that his rating should go up since he's proving he can do better.

My argument is you can't do that within the process that Markus has created without possibly imbalancing the whole game.

We all understand that "talent" moves up and down mostly due to age, but randomly as well. The "ratings" try and follow that curve.... talent up - ratings up - talent down - ratings down.

Stats are the result of the current ratings - so, if a guy is batting .350 and his "rating" is "5" then the explanation can only be one of two possibilites...

(1) He's beating the laws of average, or
(2) There is a "hidden" value that further defines a players abilities.

If the 2nd is true, then it was added to help throw in the uncertainties we see in real life. "Why can't Joe Blow hit better? He's got amazing talent" or "Where did Dave Smith come from? He doesn't appear that good."

Also if #2 is true, this gives you "reason" to put Smith in instead of Joe Blow regardless of ratings.

If #1 is true, then yes, it makes sense to always go with the best rated guy.

Here's the dilemma... if you KNOW which of the above is in the game, you have lost the "fog of war" that makes this game different. I know some of you are going to take issue with this - but every other baseball game on the market gives you everything you need to know to make the obvious choice. OOTP doesn't - and that's what makes it different.

another 2 cents....

Ok, Henry I hope you're not taking any of what I've been saying or about to say personally I'm just giving an opposing point of view (and in my opinion a superior one ).

Ok like u said assuming #2 that there are hidden values that are added "to help throw in the uncertainties we see in real life." Alright, this sounds all good and dandy, and I agree with you I like this "Fog of War" aspect a lot about OOTP5. But you're not finishing that analogy all the way. In real life there is a "Fog of War" but once your army arrives at the location, you realize the truth and see whether you're wrong or right, and consequently, your views are re-adjusted to more represent the truth of what you see before your eyes. You take this new adjustment into account before you make your next move just like how ratings should be re-adjusted once you've reached the location(IE Put the Player in Your Starting MLB Lineup & witnessing his performance).

To add to that point, what bugs me is that in real life after a period of time "Dave Smith/Jaime Moyer" is recognized as a legit major leaguer and even as an All-star. Doesn't this mean now that according to the Managers who start him and the fans who vote for him are recognizing that Moyer's ratings are actually higher. In real life, we are allowed the flexibility to adjust those ratings and change our minds about a player...in OOTP5 the ratings don't adjust, and I think if a guy consistently "overachieves" for a sustainable period then the ratings should eventually reflect his true talents. Maybe Marcus should make it so, if we start players who have these "hidden talents" for more than 2-3 years then their "fog of war" should be removed and their true talents be revealed...i mean after 2 or 3 years of all-star numbers the secret is out there's no more need for a "fog of war." I like the "fog of war" early on but at some point initial perceptions should be adjusted as they are in real life.

More importantly, this is even more of an issue when it comes to propects who consistently overachieve in their minor league years but are not given a chance because their perceived talent is "low". Because their shown talent is low we know they can't develop and thus they're ratings won't go up anymore unless their talent does go up as well- and as a result, we never ever even give them a chance to see if they can make it in the big leagues (we usually wait until these types randomly get a talent increase before we promote them). Their shown talent then should either reflect their hidden real talent (if you believe #2) or it should increase (if you believe #1), otherwise these players who are generated for us are useless- and this is wrong. The game would be so much better if "sleeper" prospects and "diamond in the rough" type players could be developed as they do in real life. Naturally bumping up these players talent levels through talent level increases brings up your next issue which is:

Originally posted by Henry

have a concern on game balance if you take the stats (which might be controlled by the hidden factor) and then re-layer them into a set of equations that are designed to create them. In effect, your creating a "loop". In other words, player A hits .350 with a "5" rating. The "loop" ups him to "6" and he now hits .370... the loop ups him to "7" and he hits .400. you can see where I'm going....

To which I reply, there is a way around this problem by implementing a "performance vs. expectation" control that I explained a couple of posts earlier and will repaste here for those too lazy to look back up.

Originally posted by GoPads02
Of course, the biggest worry of having stats dictate to a degree whether Talent Potential increases is that you'll have a spiralling situation where players with good stats will get all the talent increases and those with bad stats will suffer a downward spiral of talent decreases. Again, this is not true, because there are at least 2 controls besides age. The first control is that again the percentages are still very low. The 2nd control is that players must Overachieve or Underachieve relative to their Talent Levels in order to have a higher probability of a talent increase/decrease, otherwise they're percent chance remains at 5%.

To illustrate what I mean, let's assume that there are two players, "Player A" and "Player B." Both players are exactly the same (same age, position) except that both their Talent and Ratings differ. So "Player A" who has a Homerun Talent of Fair and hits 15 HRs each year in AA and AAA will get that +2% added to his base 5% for a Talent Increase. "Player B," who has a Homerun Talent of Average, hits 15 HRs in AA and AAA, however he will get nothing or +0% added to his base 5% probability. Even though both players have performed exactly the same statistically, Player A has a higher probability of a talent increase than Player B (7% for A vs. 5% for B) because it is perceived that Player A is overachieving relative to his Talent Level of Poor while Player B is merely performing at a level that is expected of him.

This "performance vs. expectations" mechanism acts as a control because say now Player A does get lucky and indeed receives a Talent Increase. His Homerun Talent Level increases from Fair to Average. Now since his Talent Level is higher, his expectations are higher as well, which makes it more diffucult for him to "overachieve" again. Essentially this means his probability for another Talent increase is reset from 7% back to the normal base level of 5%. It will only go up to 7% if he overachieves again and hits like 30+ HRs in AAA which is considered "Overachieving" for a prospect who has a HR Talent of Average. The same concept is applied for underachievers and talent decreases.

I hope i'm making sense and I hope you see why I think it's not that difficult and more importantly, disruptive at all to make these small tweaks to the Player Development curves. NOTE TO HENRY And by tweaking the Player Development curves first, the top 100 list will automatically adjust (and in effect change) while keeping the criteria for choosing who's on the list the same as before- that is what I hope happenned in the last patch...only Marcus and maybe Henry knows for sure.

I'm sorry to be repeating this over and over again...especially since I explained about this solution and control mechanism in my very first original post 6 months ago, but I have a feeling u didn't pick it up the first time around.

Another point to add is, logically, this is an additional layer that is added to the player development algorithm not a new algorithm that replaces the one that Marcus already has in place for player development. This means that the same rules about players having growth occurring from 20-27 applies, the same rules about players declining the beginning of age 33+ still applies, and the "exceptions" that make this game so great still apply as well This is merely a probability adjustment to the randomness factor of talent increases. Assuming this is how Marcus's player development algorythm is programmed, adding this layer with the included control shouldn't be disruptive at all to the current balance of the game.

[akw4572]

Originally posted by alhill
Basing the top prospect list more heavily on stats isn't really the best idea to come up here.

Minor league stats have a lot less correlation to major league success than talents and ratings. Also, it tends to overrate older prospects or prospects than have a 1 in a rating instead of a zero. I honestly dont care if player A has a 1 in homers when he's 19 and player B has a 2. I more interested in the fact that player A is brill talents in homers and play B has fair talent.

All this change does is make it harder for someone to get accurate information on who the prospects that are truly going to be good major leaguers are.

Generally, I like patches to fix things, not break things. Now I have a top prospect list that is essentially broken, as it gives me less accurate information than it did before.

I hope you change that back, or at least give players the option to choose which way they would prefer it. More options is almost always better.

Thanks for that update on how to scout minor league players. You back my thoughts up exactly. Acquire lots of players with "5 tools" and then hope they succeed in the majors.


Jim Bowden

[Henry]

gopads02,

Well, I can't argue with the concept I do agree it would have to be finely-tuned to effect only those players that have overachieved or underachieved though... a limited number of players - the "surprises" one way or the other.

On the issue of the Top 100 list, I have a different outlook than most, I think.

We have three ways to evaluate a player...

1. Statistics
2. Rating (if you don't have them hidden)
3. Talents

We also have two "ratings systems"...

1. The Blue/Gold Stars
2. The Top 100 list

I think it would be a huge mistake to end up with both rating systems telling you the same thing - yet part of this discussion centers around how to make the rating system (in this case th Top 100 list) more accurate.

I think both rating systems (Blue Stars and Top 100 list) should in fact vary. For ultimate realism and challenge, these two systems should be somewhat different in their results. To do that, we need two different methods to rate players - and neither should really be correct. Follow ?

Henry